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First Posted: 11/27/2013
DM
Duryea Borough’s new recycling truck comes with all the contemporary comforts: leather interior, a back-up camera, automatic transmission, but the best part is that its gas costs about $1.55 per gallon.
Borough officials unveiled a new recycling truck Tuesday, the purchase of which was made possible through a Department of Environmental Protection grant, and it runs completely on compressed natural gas, or CNG.
The truck has just about as much power as the borough’s other diesel trucks, but its engine burns cleaner to the point of non-comparison with the rest of the borough fleet.
Borough Street Supervisor Gino Marriggi fired up the truck to demonstrate. A light mixture of water vapor and carbon dioxide puffed from the engine stacks. CNG burns with almost no particulate matter or smoke. The demonstration was nearly odorless.
“It’s (nearly) all water vapor,” said ron McHale, a salesman from Pocono Peterbilt.
McHale coordinates natural-gas engine sales for the company based in Bartonsville, which customized the truck’s construction for Duryea Borough.
The trickiest part, planners said, was installing a fueling system for the truck. Natural gas is not a liquid and must be pumped from utility lines below the ground, compressed and moved into the truck’s tanks.
The truck cost $212,354 with the grant paying 90 percent of that amount. The borough paid $28,000 for the truck out of its own general fund, but DEP could not issue the grant until Duryea had a way to put gas in the tank.
It works out that McHale and UGI Utilities project manager Joe Bauman have been friends since childhood. Recently, the two have been helping other municipalities, namely Plains Township and Dupont, set up small natural-gas compressors near their public works buildings for fueling CNG vehicles that have been added to their fleets.
The small compressor behind the Duryea Borough Building cost $36,480 to install. The components needed had to be shipped in from Italy, Marriggi said. The installation expense was absorbed by the borough’s general fund budget, said Borough Manager Lois Morreale, for a total out-of-pocket cost of $65,280 to the borough.
The time-fill system, which taps into natural gas utility pipes, takes about eight hours to fill the truck’s tanks, but the bottom line is hard to beat.
The borough pays $1.55 per gallon of gas and mileage nearly matches that of the borough’s diesel trucks — between 5 and 6 mpg.
The best part about running this truck is that it runs on domestic fuel, gas that is piped down directly from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale natural-gas reserves, Bauman said.
“We’re drinking our own milk,” Marriggi chimed in.
Duryea Councilman Frank Groblewski began discussing adding a CNG truck with Morreale about three years ago when he heard of the great success his son, who lives in California, was having with his personal CNG vehicle.
In California, CNG is more readily available to consumers in the form of frequent fast-fill pumps at regular gas stations. Groblewski said that when he spoke with his son weekly often the conversation turned to his pickup truck’s efficiency. Groblewski knew it was an option they should consider for the borough.
“He said it was the greatest thing he ever did,” Groblewski said of his son’s vehicle.